Kind: captions
Language: en
- There are no right answers
for anything involved in art.
We're all trying
experiments to find a way.
And even for the things that I work on,
I don't have a set way that I do anything.
I come to every project blank.
- Maybe you're just a meat vehicle,
and you're channeling
ideas from somewhere else.
- I believe we know close to nothing,
close to nothing about anything.
If we embrace that not knowing,
we'll have a healthier
experience going through life.
- The following is a
conversation with Rick Rubin,
one of the greatest music
producers of all time,
known for bringing the best
out of anyone he works with,
no matter the genre of music
or even the medium of art,
or just the medium of creating
something beautiful in this world.
And the list of musicians
he produced includes
many, many, many of the
greats over the past 40 years,
including the Beastie
Boys, Eminem, Metallica,
LL Cool J, Kanye West, Slayer,
Tom Petty, Johnny Cash,
Dixie Chicks, Aerosmith, Adele, Danzig,
Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down,
Jay-Z, Black Sabbath.
I can keep going for a
(laughs) very long time here.
Most importantly, Rick is
just an amazing human being.
We became fast friends,
which is surreal to say
and is just an incredible honor.
I felt truly heard as a
person when I spent the day
with him eating some
delicious Texas barbecue,
talking about life, about
music, about art, about beauty.
This was a conversation and
experience I will never forget.
This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast."
To support it, please
check out our sponsors
in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Rick Ruben.
Are you nervous?
- I'm not shaky, but I
would say I feel uneasy,
and I feel like sooner we start talking,
the more relaxed we'll get.
- Yeah, well, maybe we
should sit in this moment
and enjoy it, the nervousness of it.
Let me start with Nietzsche.
He said, "Without music,
life would be a mistake."
What do you think he means by that?
Let's talk some philosophy.
Let's try to analyze Friedrich
Nietzsche from a century ago.
- It seems like music has
the ability to bring us
so much depth
in our soul that's hard
to access any other way.
And without it, there would be a loss
beyond the pleasure of it.
It feels like it's a
window into something else.
- Something that no
other medium can express
quite the same way.
- I would say not as automatically.
Something about music
can do it automatically.
Maybe poetry or maybe
certain abstract forms can get us there,
but there's something about music
that really can get us there quickly.
- But it's also the time,
the place, the history.
There's something about, like, a lot
of my family's still in Philly.
There's something about
driving through Jersey
and listening to Bruce Springsteen
and then I'll get, like,
emotional, (laughs)
like, listening to, like, "I'm on Fire,"
one of one of my favorite
Bruce Springsteen songs.
There's a haunting kinda strumming to it.
It's not a strumming.
It's actually picked,
has a country feel to it,
almost like a Johnny Cash feel, actually.
And I don't know, it makes me feel,
so for people who don't
know "I'm on Fire,"
that song is, I guess,
a love song to a woman
that you can't have
because she's married, or
she's with somebody else,
which I guess is quite
a lot of love songs.
But there's something
about the haunting nature
of the guitar, and then it has
to be driving through Jersey.
And I feel like everyone
has fallen in love
with a Jersey girl at
one point in their life.
(Rick laughing)
I don't know if that's true
(laughs) for everybody,
but I feel like that.
I haven't either,
but I just feel like that.
(Rick laughing)
There's something about Bruce Springsteen.
It's like, "Yeah, I've been there."
You know, and that's just
takes you to a place of emotion
that you just, that captures love,
that captures longing, that
captures the heartbreak
of just the way time flows in life
and the fact that it's finite,
and just all of that in
a single simple song.
Like, what else can capture that?
- Yeah, I don't know,
but it's true that
there's a connection both
between time, and place, and music.
Certain music growing up on the East Coast
didn't really resonate with me
until I spent time on the West Coast,
Eagles being an example.
When I lived in New York,
the Eagles didn't really speak to me.
ZZ Top didn't really speak to me.
And then when I started
spending time in California
and driving through Laurel
Canyon, all of a sudden the music
of the Eagles felt appropriate somehow.
And I started listening to it more.
- Got it, so not until you went out West
can you understand the sounds of the West.
So it's really like New York has a sound.
What other places have a
sound in the United States?
- I think every place does.
And that said, sometimes
we can get an experience
through music of a place.
Like, we can resonate with a
music and not understand why.
And then maybe when we go to
the place where it was created,
it's almost like we have a
knowingness of that place.
It's not a strange place anymore.
- Yeah, Stevie Ray Vaughn
with blues and Texas blues,
you can just listen to "Texas Flood,"
and just, again, there's,
like, a woman you're missing,
a broken heart, and somehow
that connects you to the place.
The Eagles, what song of the
Eagles connects with you?
Are we talking about,
like, "Take It Easy,"
or are we talking more
like "Hotel California"?
- I'm thinking "Take It
Easy," but both are great.
- Yeah, there's certain songs
when I started learning
guitar when I was young,
that's like, I would like
to be the kind of person
that not only knows how to play this song
but understands the song
and, like, have that song be something
I played 20 years ago. (laughs)
And I've lived with that song for a while.
Like, "Hotel California" is an example.
Obviously, there's the solo,
but there's also the
soulfulness of the lyrics,
which I still don't understand.
And it could be about anything.
And as you get older,
I feel like the meaning
of the song could be anything.
- Yeah, I think that's true.
I think that's the beauty of them.
I think when the person wrote them,
they may have had one interpretation,
but it's not contingent on us
getting that interpretation
to like it, or resonate
with it, or feel it.
In some ways, the best art is open enough
where the artist gets
to have their experience
when they make it,
and then the audience gets
to have their experience when they listen,
and they don't have to be the same.
- And then it connects thousands
or millions of people together.
There's a togetherness of music
when you share that music,
when you're listening to
stuff together, like in a car.
First of all, the car is a sacred place.
So I work in part on autonomous vehicles,
and you start to think,
well, what are the things you lose
when the car stops being the
central part of American life,
car ownership?
It just feels like the
car, when you're alone,
it's like a therapist thing, session
because you get angry at other humans.
And then you get to, like, sit
in your own anger and emotion.
You get to listen to the
song on a long road trip
and remember, like, run
through your memories,
the heartbreak, I don't
know, the one that got away,
but also, like, the
beautiful moments, all of it,
yeah, and all of that in a car. (laughs)
- Yeah, driving also
serves another purpose in,
it's one of the things that we can do
that we have to pay attention
enough not to crash
but typically can essentially run
on autopilot enough where
we could be thinking
about something else or
concentrating on something else.
And the difference between
concentrating on something
or trying to solve a problem
when you're solely trying
to solve a problem versus
when you have some little task
that's keeping you occupied,
I find, if I have something slight
to take care of,
it frees a more creative side of my mind
to better solve problems.
- You know, I'm kind of jealous
of people that found that
in painting, for example.
They'll be drawing or
painting and listening to,
so that's the small task you do.
You're coloring in the lines.
It's like this gentle,
peaceful, slow process
that requires just a small
fraction of your mind.
And then you can listen.
Some people listen to podcasts that way.
Some people listen to music that way.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
- How do you do it?
How do you free your mind?
- Running is one of them.
There's a process.
So most freeing of the
mind for me has to go
through a process of a
bit of pain for a bit.
So doing something
difficult, it's just like
a airplane taking off or something.
Like, for example, running,
the first few miles
would just be just, first
of all, the physical aspect,
which is like, "Ah, you're so fat.
You're outta shape.
You're getting old," this, that.
Okay, that slowly dissipates,
and then the demons come in, who are like,
"You should be getting this
and that and this done.
You haven't gotten it done.
You're, like, breaking promises,"
all those kinds of voices coming in.
And after that, maybe mile four,
it's like, "Fuck it."
You just run, run with wind,
at a very slow pace but with the wind.
And then you can think,
so it's the footsteps,
the physical activity.
But then you could deeply
think about stuff, ideas,
sort of design, whether
it's program design stuff
or, like, high-level life decisions,
all those kinds of things.
I would say running.
I used to build bridges from toothpicks.
I used to be a thing.
It's an engineering, I guess
some people, like,
glued together airplanes
and stuff like that.
But the bridge is such deeply honest work
because at the end of it,
you're gonna have to test
that bridge, and you're gonna
see how good your work was,
the little details but
also the big picture.
- Do you use glue or no?
- Yeah, we use glue, so
it's not pure physics.
It's materials engineering, too,
'cause the way you want to do it
is you actually split the
wood as thin as possible
and then glue back together
'cause the glue is really strong,
except for the arches
and things like that.
So you're building arch bridges,
which is a whole nother skill
'cause you have to bend
the wood, and it's so cool
'cause the thing can hold
thousands of times its weight,
and then you get to watch it
explode at a certain point
from the pressure.
And when you do a really good job,
it doesn't explode in a
kind of some weak point
that you didn't anticipate,
just kind of starts cracking.
Everything cracks. Everything explodes.
It's just pieces fly everywhere,
and it's literally hundreds of hours
of work just explode in front of you.
And it's a metaphor for life maybe.
And it's all for nothing, (laughs)
except for the journey
that you took to get there.
And no one understands.
Speaking of which, back to Nietzsche,
these questions are ridiculous.
So you're gonna have to, (laughs)
you're gonna have to try to figure out
what the heck I'm trying to do here.
So Nietzsche also said
a line I love, which is,
"And those who were seen dancing
were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music."
Do you, Rick Rubin, ever feel crazy,
or maybe you're the one who's sane,
and everybody else is crazy?
You know the dancing,
the joy of the music,
of just feeling the music,
and everybody else just
doesn't understand.
And this doesn't have to
be literally about music.
This is about art, about creation.
- Yeah, I would say I feel different,
and it's hard to say.
It's like, which side of the
equation is crazy, you know?
- Did you ever find a group of people
that you get, that get you?
- Yes.
- Is that
what producing is essentially is you try
to find the moments when
you just get each other?
- No.
I would say there're definitely
certain artists with certain temperaments
when you're around them, it
feels like you can finish
each other's sentences, you know,
just see the world the same
way, comedians as well.
- And that's not essential for the two
of you together creating
something special?
- No, no.
- [Lex] So it could be a tension, too?
- It could be any, there's no rules.
It'd be like, think of it like a coach.
A coach could bring
what they have to bring
to any talented individual
and, you know, help them find their way.
And sometimes, you know, the right coach
for the right athlete really works.
And other times there's a mismatch.
- Have you seen the movie "Whiplash"?
- I did. I saw it when it came out.
So I don't really remember
it well, but I did see it.
- [Lex] So there's a coach type of figure.
- Yes.
- Who is pushing
a drummer to create,
to grow as a musician, but also
to create something special.
I don't know if it's even
special music skill-wise.
It's a special moment.
- Yeah.
- I don't know
what he's trying to create.
From one perspective,
it's just an abusive,
a person who selfishly gets off
on being abusive to those he's with.
But from another perspective,
the way I saw that movie
is it's just the two right
humans finding each other
at the right moment in life
and risking destroying
each other in the process,
but maybe something
beautiful will come of it.
Do you think that's a toxic
relationship, (laughs)
or does some of that
movie resonate with you,
as that sometimes is
required to create art,
that kind of suffering?
- Yeah, it doesn't.
Well, there's suffering involved
but not that kind of suffering,
not for me.
There's some people who
that's their process,
and that's whatever works.
You know, there are no right answers
for anything involved in art.
We're all trying
experiments to find a way.
And even for the things that I work on,
I don't have a set way that I do anything.
I come to every project blank
and see,
I really listen to what
the artist plays and says
and through what they
explain they wanna do,
help find the best way to get there.
Was it implicit in the movie
that the mean teacher
liked being a mean teacher?
The way you described it was
that he got off on
treating people this way.
Do we know that to be the case?
I don't remember-
- No.
- that in the movie.
- But we sometimes
project that onto people,
people who are really rough on students.
You start to think, well,
maybe that is fundamentally who they are,
and if it's fundamentally who they are
that there must be some pleasure in it,
or it's an addiction of some sort.
But it could be
also a deliberate choice
made by the teacher.
- It also could be a lineage.
Like, you know, in the zen tradition,
there are sort of the mean roshis,
who, if you do something
wrong, take a physical action,
and it's just in the
lineage it's considered
that's how you teach.
I didn't come from that lineage,
so I'm much more of a,
I feel like it's more of a collaboration
between people working together
to make the best thing.
It's not a boss-slave relationship at all.
It's much more of a let's find our way.
And we agree at the
beginning of the process
that if either of us
or any of us don't like
what's happening, we say it.
And the goal is to keep
working till we get to a point
where we're all really happy with it.
It's like, if we make
something that an artist likes,
and I don't like, or that I
like, and they don't like,
we haven't gone far enough.
- Hmm, in terms of lineage,
the ones that seek destruction
and the ones that seek happiness all come
from the same lineage.
We all came from fish, so
somewhere in you, deep down there,
there's the other stuff, too.
It's just that you haven't
been yet, by the way,
'cause you said every new project,
including maybe starting (laughs) today,
is an opportunity to channel,
to plug into something
that was always there, and
you haven't gotten a chance
to plug into.
You mentioned listening.
How do you listen to a person?
How do you hear a person
when you first come in?
Like, we just met.
What's the analysis happening?
But I mean, with me is one thing.
I'm an artist of sorts.
I program, and I'm just,
I'm human (laughs) I guess.
I guess we're all creating art.
How do you see, like, how do I bring out,
so for people who don't know,
I mean, obviously, everyone knows
that you've produced some of
the greatest records ever.
But the way I see that is
you just brought out the best in a lot
of interesting artists.
And so in order to bring
out the best in them,
you have to understand them.
You have to hear the music of their soul.
Hopefully, I'm not
being too romantic here,
but just, like, is there
something you can say
of how difficult that is,
if there's a process, if
there's tricks, if it's luck?
- I think it starts with
this, again, coming in blank,
like, not having any preconceived ideas,
being open and really listening,
listening and not thinking about
what you're gonna say next,
or what your opinion is,
or, you know, not,
basically being a recorder
and just hearing what comes in,
and then once you hear what comes in,
processing that information,
and trying our best to do that without any
of the beliefs that we might
have to impact what that is.
You know, if I ask you a question,
I don't wanna listen to you
and have any reaction
happening when you're speaking
and wanna be as neutral as possible.
For me, my goal is
not to form an opinion.
It's to understand.
So if anything, I would
draw you out further
and just ask questions
to really understand.
Or if you say something
that somehow triggers me in a way
that, you know, I wonder
how he came to that,
I wouldn't challenge you.
I would ask, like, "Oh,
how did you find that?"
You know, "How did you get to that place?"
- From a place of curiosity,
you would try to figure out-
- Yeah, I wanna understand
who the person is.
And through questioning,
we can usually get there,
or through just spending time together,
you find out who the person is.
- What about finding out
and figuring out how to
then take the next steps
of bringing out the best in them?
Like, is it just trial and
error, like, "Let's try this"?
- It's definitely trial and error.
It's always trial and error.
- Are you afraid of making a mistake?
Like, "Let's add this instrument.
Let's remove this instrument."
- Let's try.
- "Let's add this line.
Let's remove this line."
- Let's try, and let's be open.
So one of the rule,
we don't really have rules,
but one of the agreements
in the studio is any idea
that anyone has, we'll
always demonstrate it.
We'll always try it
because I can describe to you an idea
and you can think,
"That's a terrible idea.
Let's not do that."
And then I can play you the idea.
And then you can say,
"Oh, that's really good."
And it's completely different
because when we hear,
when we're told something,
we have to imagine what that is.
And the way you see
something and imagine it,
and the way I see something and imagine it
are completely different.
- So you say a thing, and
now there's two humans
that play that thing in their mind
differently in their imagination.
And then there's a cool creative step.
And when you actually do it to see
how it differs in the imagination,
and then the difference
or the commonality will be
like an exciting little
discovery together.
- Well, so many groups
of people making things
together in a room,
one person'll suggests something,
and someone else in the room saying,
"Ah, that doesn't sound like a good idea.
Let's not do that," and then they move on.
The testing of every
idea is really important.
And that's how you get to see,
"Oh, that's not at all what
I thought it was gonna be."
Happens to me all the time.
I know because someone will suggest,
"Why don't we do it like this?"
And I'll think, "That sounds bad."
And then I'll think, "Okay, let's try it."
And then we hear it, and then, you know,
eight times outta 10,
it's nothing like I imagined and great.
- And you try not to have
an ego about the fact
that you thought it was not
a good idea in your head.
- There can't be any ego in this.
If everyone's there with the purpose
of making the best thing we can,
there's nothing else.
You know, there can't be
any boundaries to that.
- So there's a moment I saw with,
I know you don't love talking
about previous things you've done,
but it's cool to dive in there
every once in a while-
- I'm fine
to talk about anything
- To sample it.
Anything?
- We'll see.
- I have this pain I gotta talk,
no, I'm just kidding.
- Ah.
(Lex laughing)
I'll think of something ridiculous
that would make you
change your mind. (laughs)
I saw a video of you
with Jay-Z working on "99 Problems"
where you suggested
acapella, opening the song
with acapella, just no
instruments, just voice.
That, to me, I mean, that's
one of the characteristics
of the things,
of the ways you've brought out the best
in artists is doing less,
sort of tending towards
simplicity in some kind of way.
So that choice of acapella
is really interesting
'cause, like, I could
see a lot of people think
that that's a bad idea,
but it turned out to be
a really powerful idea.
Can you maybe talk about the simplicity,
how to find simplicity,
why you find simplicity is beautiful?
It does appear to be beautiful.
What is that?
- Yeah, I don't know where it comes from.
It has been with me from
the beginning of my work.
The very first album I ever produced,
the credit I took was reduced by me
instead of produced by me for that reason.
Like, I like the idea of
getting to the essential,
and I have a better idea now
that I've done it for a while.
But at the time it was
purely an instinctual thing.
And part of it is a sonic,
there's a sonic benefit,
which is the less elements you have,
you can hear each of
the ones that are there,
and they can sound better.
And the less there are,
the more space they
could have around them,
and the more you can
hear their personality.
If you were to record 10 people
playing the same guitar part
and you listen to it, it
would sound like guitar.
And if you record one person
playing a guitar part,
it sounds like a person
playing the guitar.
It's different than just guitar.
And often in the studio,
the idea of building upon things
and adding layers to thicken,
to make it sound bigger,
sometimes the more things
you add, the smaller it gets.
So a lot of it is counterintuitive
until you just, in
practice, see what works.
- You try it, so try removing
stuff until it's just right.
It's the Einstein thing.
Make it as simple as
possible but not simpler.
That's such a, like,
finding a stopping place,
just keep chopping away and chopping away.
- Yeah, there's something we also like
to do called the ruthless edit, which is,
let's say you're at a point
where, (clears throat)
it can work for anything,
but I'll give you the
example with an album.
We've recorded 25 songs.
We think the album's gonna have 10.
Instead of picking our favorite 10,
we limit it to, what are the five or six
that we can't live without?
So going past even the goal
to get to the real, like, heart of it
and then see, "Okay, we have these five
or six that we can't live without.
Now what would we add to that
that makes it better and not worse?"
And it's just,
it puts you in a different
frame when you start
with building instead of removing.
- And you might find that
there's nothing you need to add.
- Sometimes.
Sometimes something happens when you get
to the real essence, then when
you start adding things back,
it becomes clear that it was just supposed
to be this tight little thing.
- Can I ask you, like, a
therapy session question?
You mentioned somewhere that
one way to kind of think
about music, to get into music is
to look at the top, like,
hundred albums of all time,
and just go down the list,
and, like, just take it all
in like one piece of artwork.
So I was doing that for a while.
It's a cool experiment
'cause, unfortunately, I have
to admit I've gotten lazy
and stopped taking in albums as albums,
and, well, I looked at one
interesting top hundred list,
top 500 actually, which is put
together by "Rolling Stone."
And they put, this is
the therapy session part.
And this has to do with simplicity, too.
They put Marvin Gaye's
"What's Going On" at
number one, spoiler alert.
So I'd like to maybe get
your opinion on that choice.
The reason Marvin Gaye
is really interesting.
It'd actually be cool to play
what's going on in a second.
But when you just listen
to his, like, acapella,
just listen to his voice.
It is really good.
Like, people, it makes me
wonder if it's possible
to pull off, like, most of
his songs with no instruments.
Like, in many parts, there's so much soul
in just "Mercy, Mercy
Me," "What's Going On?"
There's so many songs that
you could just be like,
I wonder if you could
just, like, just go raw,
or maybe in parts, or maybe
do what you did with Jay-Z,
just open up with nothing.
Anyway, there's something so powerful
to a great soulful voice.
Do you mind if I play it real quick?
- No, please.
- "What's Going On?"
This is probably one of my favorite songs.
I mean, it's up there,
- [Musician] Hey, man, hey.
- [Musician] Hey, what's happening?
- [Musician] We missed you, brother.
What's up?
- This is a big,
bug party, man.
- Yeah, brother,
like to party solid, right on.
- [Musician] What's happening?
(laid-back music)
♪ Mother, mother ♪
- That voice.
♪ There's too many of you crying ♪
♪ Brother, brother, brother ♪
♪ There's far too many of you dying ♪
- There's some just very
subtle backing vocals.
♪ You know we've got to find a way ♪
♪ To bring some lovin' ♪
(Lex laughing)
♪ Here today, yeah ♪
♪ Father, father ♪
- This one hurts.
♪ We don't need to escalate ♪
- Father, father, we
don't need to escalate.
♪ You see, war is not the answer ♪
- Yeah.
♪ For only love can conquer hate ♪
- I wonder who the father
he's talking about is.
- Oh, that's interesting.
I mean, I have, so for
people who don't know,
his own father ended
up killing Marvin Gaye.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- I mean, that one is really,
I mean, for a lot of
people, your relationship
with your father, your mother, I mean,
there's different dynamics,
but it's almost like part of
life is resolving some kind
of complex puzzle you have
with the people you love,
the people close to you, or
the people who were not there,
all those kinds of things.
There's so much pain in that,
"We don't need to
escalate, father, father."
I never thought if it's,
I always thought it's his father directly.
- Yeah, I don't get that.
It could be, but I don't,
I feel like it's a more
masculine spirituality.
- Like a father figure
or just broadly some kind of spirituality?
- Could be like God,
father God, mother God,
you know, like, could be.
I don't know.
- But there's so much, it's like both hope
and melancholy.
- You sing war's not the answer.
It's like you don't tell
your father war is not,
your blood father war is not the answer.
It's a strange conversation.
It's a bigger conversation
than a personal-
- Don't you think it feels
like war when it's personal?
What's the difference between, (laughs)
war is personal, too.
It's only leaders think about
war in a geopolitical sense.
- Yeah.
- When people that fight wars,
you lose your brothers.
I mean, death is just right there.
- Yeah.
- So it might feel
just like that, but,
yeah, there is a dance
between, like, the personal
and, like, talking to the
entirety of the society.
It's like John Lennon "Imagine," like,
also a song where, is that hopeful?
Is that cynical?
Is it, like, melancholy,
like, heartbroken?
Like, you hope, you wish
things would be a certain way,
and they're not.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if John Lennon's giving up
on the world in "Imagine."
- Yeah, I don't know.
No, it's an interesting question.
There's another John Lennon lyric
in, let me think of what it is.
It's taking me a second.
And different songs keep
coming into my head,
not the one that I'm looking for.
- And you keep pressing next.
- "Across the Universe,"
"Nothing's gonna change my world,"
and when I hear that,
I hear it as hopeless.
(Lex and Rick laughing)
But I don't think, I
don't believe that that's,
well, it may be how he meant it,
but I don't think that's
how it's normally taken.
- And it's also, the taker is important.
I'm generally optimistic and hopeful.
So I always, like, look for the hope,
and, actually, the harshest love,
heartbreak songs (laughs) are
always somehow hopeful to me.
That's a love song.
To me, like, a song about losing love
is a song about the
great capacity for love
in the human heart.
That's what I hear.
- Yeah.
- So to me, losing love is exciting
(Rick laughs)
'cause it's like, that
means you really cared.
That means you felt something,
and you feel something.
You can sit in that pain,
and that pain is a reminder
of what it means to be human.
When you're that, what is it?
We were just listening.
"The only man who could ever reach me
was the son of a preacher man."
So it's like that early love or something,
or partially sexual or whatever,
that's not as interesting to me.
It's fun, it's great,
but it's that heartbreak.
That's a reminder that it can go deep,
although that's a damn good song.
- Have you ever heard the Detroit mix
of the Marvin Gaye album?
- [Lex] No.
- Call it Up. (laughs)
- [Lex] How, Coach?
- By far better, mind blowing,
I just heard it recently.
It blew my mind.
(laid-back music)
- Oh, wow, reverb, distant.
♪ Mother, mother ♪
- Interesting.
♪ There's too many of you crying ♪
♪ Brother, brother, brother ♪
♪ There's far too many of you dying ♪
- Feels like it's all
around the room more.
♪ You know we've got to find a way ♪
♪ To bring some lovin' here today, yeah ♪
♪ Father, father ♪
- More voices.
♪ We don't need to ♪
♪ Father ♪
♪ Escalate ♪
♪ You see, war is not the answer ♪
♪ For only love can ♪
- He's layering his own vocals.
♪ You know we've got to find a way ♪
♪ To bring some lovin' here today ♪
♪ Oh, oh ♪
(Lex laughing)
♪ Picket lines ♪
- It feels like there's
multiple people singing.
- Yeah.
♪ Don't punish me with brutality ♪
♪ Talk to me ♪
♪ Sister ♪
♪ So you can see ♪
♪ Sister ♪
♪ Oh, what's going on ♪
♪ What's going on ♪
- Yeah, that's beautiful.
- Yeah.
Seems to have more energy.
If you listen to the whole album,
even though you just said you don't listen
to albums anymore,
(Lex laughing)
the Detroit mix of the whole
album changes the album a lot.
- I mean, that felt,
so that's the opposite
of acapella, I would say.
- Yes.
- Because there's layers.
And maybe, I don't know if you remember,
but if memory serves me correct here,
he produces this own album here.
Marvin Gaye was the
producer on this, I believe.
- I believe so, and this one sounds more
like it's a get-together,
and the whole album sounds
more like a get-together,
where it's a group of people
in a room playing music together,
whereas the album version sounds more
like a recording.
This sounds less like a recording
and a little more like a party.
- Now you had a series of
conversations with Paul McCartney,
which is amazing that people should watch.
But this is continuing
our therapy session,
is there a case to be made
that "What's Going On?"
is number one album
above the Beatles' "White Album"
or "Abbey Road," above "Pet Sounds"?
Can you steel man each case?
- There's always a case.
I mean, there's always a case.
In reality, in art,
there's no metric that makes sense.
So you could put numbers on things,
but it's like, is this apple
better than this peach?
Like, it's not really a fair comparison.
- But if you just had to keep one
to represent the human species,
that's the way I think,
(laughs) to the aliens.
- So I think it's a
very personal decision.
I think you can make your choice
to represent the human species,
and I'll make mine, you know.
- Well, I would pick The
Beatles over Beach Boys.
So that's my-
- Yeah.
- If I became dictator of the world
and was talking to the aliens,
but I don't know the
full historical context
to the impact of the music.
I don't know if that's
something to consider.
Like, this kind of thought
experiment of imagine
what it was like back then to create,
to go into the studio to
do such interesting work
in the studio as opposed
to, like, listening
to just this as a pop song almost
'cause I've never been able
to understand Beach Boys.
"God Only Knows."
- The song "God Only Knows"?
- [Lex] God Only Knows,"
but all of it, the album,
"Pet Sounds," just-
- "In My Room."
- "In My Room"?
- [Rick] That song?
- What's your favorite on the album?
That one of your favorites?
- On the "Pet Sounds" album?
- [Lex] "Pet Sounds."
- The opening track.
- Do you mind if I play it?
- Please.
- It's too fun. (laughs)
- That's part of their trip, though.
- You open the heart with the fun?
- It's possible.
- Original mono and stereo mix versions.
I don't know what that means.
- [Rick] What's the opening song?
"Wouldn't It Be Nice"?
- "Wouldn't It Be Nice."
- [Rick] Yeah, that's the song.
(bright music)
♪ Wouldn't it be nice if we were older ♪
♪ Then we wouldn't have to wait so long ♪
♪ And wouldn't it be
nice to live together ♪
♪ In the kind of world where we belong ♪
♪ You know it's gonna
make it that much better ♪
♪ When we can say goodnight ♪
- The best part is near the end,
and then back to fun.
♪ Wouldn't it be nice if ♪
- Yeah, that we could say
goodnight and stay together.
Wouldn't that be nice?
- Wouldn't it be nice?
- Wake up together.
- But we're not.
There's heartbreak in
this one, too. (laughs)
(Rick laughing)
Still to me, like,
George Harrison, like, is
that the "White Album"?
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
I mean, that, with the
Beatles, it's so hard to,
depending on the day, I'll
say a very different song.
That's my favorite
song, but I often return
to "While My Guitar Gently
Weeps" is my favorite song.
- Spectacular, spectacular song.
- Anything George Harrison,
honestly, "Something,"
"Something in the way she moves."
What would you classify that?
There's, like, several Beatles songs,
categories of Beatles songs.
So the that's like the
melancholy love songs or ballads
or something like that,
"Yesterday," "Let It Be."
Do you have favorites?
Like, how have you changed as a man,
as a human being, as a musician
and music producer having
done that lengthy interaction
with McCartney?
- Hmm.
Anytime you're around
someone who's such a hero,
and you spend time with them,
and they're a human being,
it helps put perspective on everything.
You know, it's like-
- Oh, that they're just human,
that aspect?
- Well, obviously,
I mean, everyone's just human.
But I remember the first time I got
to see Paul McCartney play live.
It was in a stadium of 70,000 people,
and he started playing,
and I started crying,
and I couldn't believe I was in,
even with 70,000 people,
I couldn't believe
that this man walks the earth
(Lex laughing)
and that I'm in the same place as him.
And he's the person who
wrote that and played that.
And now he's here playing it for us.
It's mind blowing.
That's the voice.
- [Lex] That's the-
- It's overwhelming.
- Is it inspiring, or is it, like,
'cause sometimes when you have,
and I've gotten a chance to meet, I mean,
I love people in general.
Like, every person is fascinating to me.
But, yeah, when you've
been a fan for a long time
and you meet a person sort of,
I'll just remove present company,
it's like, "Oh, they're
just human." (laughs)
So there's both.
It's both inspiring that just
a simple human can achieve
such beautiful things,
but it's also, like,
almost wishing there were gods
moving around us. (laughs)
It's somehow peaceful.
It's more comforting to know
that there's, you know, bigger fish.
I'm just a small fish, and
then there's bigger fish,
and they will take care
of the ocean for us.
- I think we are all
capable of being big fish.
I don't think that there
are special people.
I don't think it's like that.
- I would make a case.
So the variety of artists
that you worked with and
brought the best out of,
it does seem that you're
out of this world.
So do you think you would know, like,
if you're the same kind of species,
maybe you're just a meat vehicle,
and you're channeling
ideas from somewhere else?
- I feel like I'm channeling
ideas from somewhere else,
100%, but I think-
- [Lex] Have you asked
questions about where from?
- I believe we all are, though.
You know, I believe
we're vehicles for information that,
when it's ready to come
through, it comes through,
and the people who have good
antennas pick up the signal.
But I'm sure you've had
an experience in your life
where you've had an idea for something,
and you've not acted on it,
and eventually someone else does it.
- Mm.
- And it's not
because they're doing it
because you had the idea,
and they stole your idea.
It's because the time
has come for that idea.
And if you don't do it,
someone else is gonna do it.
- [Lex] It's being broadcast
by whatever the source is.
- Whatever the source is.
- Yeah, I tend to see humans
as not quite special in that way.
Yeah, it's different kinds
of antennas walking around
listening to ideas, and ideas are,
I like the notion of
Richard Dawkins's of memes,
where it's kind of the
ideas of the organisms,
and they're just using
our brains to multiply,
to select, to compete, to evolve.
And humans, we really wanna
hold onto the specialness
of our body, of our mind.
But it's really the ideas.
So if Rick Rubin was
born two centuries ago,
you wouldn't be a music producer.
You'd be, (laughs)
or I mean, maybe, but you
have an antenna. (laughs)
- [Rick] Yeah.
- And if no signal's coming in,
or you'd be hearing
potentially a different signal.
Is there-
- I think we all have our own
antenna for whatever it is
that we, you know,
maybe not everyone has tuned
into their antenna to see
what it is that their strength
in bringing through is.
I'm lucky in that it found me
'cause I didn't know that it was a,
I didn't even know this was a job.
- I sometimes wonder,
I mean, a lot of young people,
a lot of people wonder,
like, what's the purpose
and the specs of my antenna?
What am I put on this earth to do?
Like, if, you know, I
can live 1,000 lives,
there's so many trajectories.
And imagine the greatest
possible trajectory
that reveals the most beautiful thing
I can possibly create in this world,
live in the most beautiful way.
What is that?
I feel like that's a good
exercise to think about
'cause it's also liberating to think
that you can do anything.
I mean, more and more, I
suppose that's kind of life.
It's like society is
pushing conformity on you.
You know, I had my own flavor
of conformity I thought I'm
supposed to be following.
And then early on, I would
say, like, in the late 20s,
you realize, wait a minute,
you don't have to do what
teachers tell you to do,
what parents tell you to do,
what society tells you to do.
Like, I would never wear
a suit if I listened
to, like, my colleagues
and community who think
a suit is like the symbol of, what is it?
A symbol of conformity,
actually, which is hilarious.
But it's actually a kind of rebellion
and everything else, like, of that nature,
doing these silly podcasts, like...
- I have a question I have to ask.
- Sure.
- 'Cause you brought up
the suit.
- Yeah.
- Do you wear the suit,
is this your daily uniform
outside of podcasting?
- So for the longest time,
it was, some kind of suit.
And then recently, (laughs)
coinciding with going to Texas,
I'm such a loner, I'm an introvert,
and there's a bit
of a hiding from the world
when I wear other stuff.
I really want to,
did not make fame, recognition,
money, all of those things,
a motivation at all,
and the world kind of wants
you to make those motivations,
not the world, but I would say
maybe the Western world or maybe America,
maybe a capitalist system does, but-
- That's a choice to buy into that or not.
- Right.
It takes a brave person,
a person of character to not buy in.
And I'm like a baby deer
trying to find its legs.
You don't have to buy
in 'cause I love people,
and I think I'm kind of an idiot.
And so when other people
say do this and do that,
there is a pressure there.
It's actually very difficult
to not listen necessarily
to the advice of others
and yet keep yourself fragile
and open to the world.
It's easy to be like, "I'm always right,"
you know, just kind of
staking your ground.
But if you wanna be, like,
vulnerable, if you wanna connect
with people and just wear
your heart on your sleeve,
then you're going to listen to them.
I mean, that's the
double-edged sword of it.
But then again, that pain, like,
if you don't let it destroy
you, you can grow from that.
Has fame affected you at all?
Did you unplug from the
system at some point?
- Same, I've always been sort of removed.
I don't feel like I'm part of any system.
- [Lex] Do you feel famous? (laughs)
- I'm aware that when I
go out, people, you know,
say nice things to me, which is great.
(Lex and Rick laughing)
But that's about it.
That's about as far as it-
- But it doesn't affect your art,
about your creativity.
- It can't.
- Or your thoughts, like,
when you're sitting alone
and thinking about the world-
- It can't, it can't.
It's a destructive force.
The reason that you are
who you are, and the reason
that you're finding the
success you're finding is
because you've been true to
yourself to get to that stage.
So to start changing
that, to either conform
to someone else's idea
what you should be doing,
it just seems like it doesn't make sense.
- Do you have a sense of who you are?
'Cause I don't necessarily have a...
- I don't know.
I know that I really
like making good things,
and I know that I'm crazy about it
in that it's like an obsession.
And I want things to be
as good as they could be,
whatever it is.
And if I finish a music project,
and I have a window of time
where I'm not working on music,
I might be moving the
furniture around in the house.
You know, I'm always looking
for a creative outlet
to find a way to make something better.
Or there was a period of time
where I was in a weird corporate situation
that didn't allow me to flourish.
And I turned, I focused the
creativity in on myself,
and I lost a bunch of weight
and changed my life, and-
- So that was the kind of art.
Like, you've gone through a
whole process of losing weight,
getting in shape, getting healthy.
That was a kind of creative act.
- It certainly was.
It wasn't an intentional creative act,
but I had a lot of energy.
And I just, a series of events happened.
I read a book.
At the time that I was my heaviest,
I weighed about 318 pounds.
And I'd been sedentary my whole life,
basically laying on a
couch, working on music.
So I've never been
physically active in my life.
And I read a book about a
guy named Stu Mittleman,
a runner who ran 1,000 miles in 11 days.
And I thought, "Wow, I, you
know, get outta breath walking
to the corner, and another
human being can run
1,000 miles in 11 days.
I feel like I have bad information.
You know, clearly I'm
doing something wrong."
And I reached out to a person
that Stu mentioned in
the book, Phil Maffetone.
- Who's a legend.
I really appreciate him as well.
He's MAF 180 method, too.
He's such an interesting,
I think he focuses on-
- Heart-rate training,
and he was the first person to talk
about essentially a-
- Low-carb stuff.
- Paleo-
- Yeah.
- keto diet.
- For a person who's healthy.
- 40 years ago.
- For a person who's going to
be healthy, who can exercise
and actually perform at an elite level.
He's the first person
when I, you know, talk
about heart-rate training,
him and other endurance
athletes he influenced,
he gave me permission to,
like, run slower. (laughs)
- [Rick] Yeah.
- (laughs) It was the
first time I realized,
"Oh, I can run long distances
if I just run slower,
and then I take that seriously."
And I actually fell in love
with running, very much so
'cause, for me, and everyone's different,
but for me, the love of running happens
in the longer distances.
- Yeah, did you read "Born to Run"?
- Mm-hmm.
- Great book.
- Amazing book.
There is something special about running,
and everybody has their
own journey with it,
and even ultra marathon
running, those kinds of things.
It is, like many journeys,
one that can pull you in.
Like, you won't be the same person after.
And I try to be deliberate
about making choices
after which you will
not be the same person.
And so I'm nervous
about, like, the ultra
marathon running world.
- [Rick] Mm-hmm.
- I have to talk to you about Johnny Cash.
I mean, when people ask me
what my favorite musical thing is
of all time,
you know, it's a very difficult question
to answer, of course,
but I'm pretty quick,
if I'm not allowed to pick
anything by Tom Waits,
(Rick and Lex laughing)
I'm pretty quick to say
"Hurt" by Johnny Cash,
the performance, whatever you call it,
whatever the heck that is
because that's not just a song
covered by an artist.
That's a human being at
the end of their life
that the rawness of that,
I mean, oh, there's also a music video,
which for a lot of
people adds a lot to it.
For me, just the music alone
is, I mean, the guitar,
every choice on that,
see, the few things I've heard about it,
it seemed like almost accidental,
I mean, like, little subtle
choices here and there.
Can you maybe comment on that?
I think you had a huge role in sort
of bringing Johnny Cash (laughs) back
from a different part of his life.
It's like bringing something
out that wasn't there before.
And it was incredible.
It was a celebration of a
really special musician.
And it's a totally new
kind of celebration.
"Hurt" is just one of the songs
that's an amazing
celebration of Johnny Cash.
But "Hurt" is like at the peak of that.
So what was that like,
putting that song together?
Maybe it might be nice to listen to it
'cause I freaking love that song.
And as a guitarist, I just,
the simplicity of it.
It seems like every choice contributes
to the greatness of the song.
(pensive guitar music)
Simple, it's crisp, but it's dark, too.
♪ I hurt myself today ♪
- It's one of the greatest opening lines
of any song.
♪ To see if I still feel ♪
- The shakiness.
- And that's that.
- Yeah, "To see if I still feel."
- Yeah, I'm talking about the lyrics.
I don't even mean the performance.
The words are...
♪ The only thing that's real ♪
(Lex laughs)
♪ The needle tears a hole ♪
- But those words outta Trent
Reznor are not the same.
They have a different meaning coming
outta Johnny Cash's mouth,
♪ Try to kill it all away ♪
♪ But I remember everything ♪
♪ What have I become ♪
- What have I become?
♪ My sweetest friend ♪
- (laughs) Written
probably for a young man.
- Think he was 20 when he wrote it, Trent.
♪ Goes away in the end ♪
♪ And you could have it all ♪
♪ My empire of dirt ♪
- Anger, regret, pain.
♪ I will let you down ♪
♪ I will make you hurt ♪
- The way the guitar is played,
the choice of instrument,
the layers there,
the freedom to give him, to use the voice
that's fading.
It's not fading. It's changing.
Maybe he's losing some
aspects of his voice.
And it's almost, like,
shaking a little bit,
and it's a little bit
out of tune in parts.
How much of that was deliberate?
Like, how do you give Johnny
Cash the freedom to do that?
How do you find that together?
Is there any insights you can give?
- I think it's a case almost
of, like, the right pairing,
the right role with the
right actor you could say.
The song lyrics, the reason
we chose the song was
because of the lyrics,
purely about the lyrics.
And at that point in time, both Johnny
and I would send each other songs
of possible ideas to record.
And that was one that I sent him,
and he didn't respond to initially.
I would send him, at that
time, we would burn CDs,
and I would send him, like,
a CD of 20 songs or 25 songs,
(Lex laughing)
and he would send them to me.
- You'd burn a CD for Johnny Cash,
and you'd send him all different songs of-
- Of, like, songs to consider recording.
- [Lex] Yeah. (laughs)
- And we would send these back and forth.
And then I had "Hurt" on one of the ones
that I sent him, and he didn't respond.
And usually, if he didn't respond,
we didn't go back to it, you know?
And that one, I remember I sent it again,
and I put it first
(laughs) on the next CD.
And when we spoke about, when
he listened to the CD again,
he didn't respond.
I said, "Check out that first song,
and I really feel like
that one could be good."
- [Lex] What did you see in that song?
'Cause I-
- It's the lyrics.
It's the lyrics.
- 'Cause I feel like nobody,
there's very few people in the world
that would see these lyrics
in Johnny Cash's mouth
and think this is a good idea,
(laughs) including Fred Reznor.
- Yeah, yeah, I know that
Trent had trepidations
in the beginning.
- Yes.
- But if you listen to the words,
if you forget the music,
and if you forget what Nine
Inch Nails sounds like,
and you just read it like a poem,
and then you imagine a 70-year-old
man reading these lyrics,
it'll be profound.
It's profound.
So based on lyrics, that
started the journey.
And then at this point in time,
Johnny was not in great health.
And sometimes I would go to Nashville
and record with him at his house.
Sometimes he would come to California,
but he was coming to
California less regularly.
And because there were so
many songs we wanted to try,
he would start sometimes recording
just a straight acoustic version.
Like, he would have someone play guitar,
he would sing, and they
would send those to me,
and we would discuss, like,
"Is this one to build on?"
And that was one where he said,
"I don't wanna record this
one until we're together.
I feel like we should
do this one together."
So on the next trip to California,
we recorded it at my old house.
And
I mean, all the songs we
recorded felt special.
So I can't say this one felt special,
but lyrically, it's more the lyrics have
such a profound
sense of regret.
- [Lex] "What have I become?"
- Yeah, and to hear a, when
you're 20 years old talking
about regret, it's heartbreaking,
but it's heartbreaking in a different way
because you have your whole
life to figure it out.
When you're looking back
over your life at the end
of your life with regret, it's brutal.
- Yeah.
- It's brutal.
So that was the initial spark of doing it.
And then when we recorded
it, I believe it was
two guitar players, if
I remember correctly,
maybe even three,
Smokey Hormel, Matt
Sweeney, and Mike Campbell,
I believe.
And Benmont Tench was playing
the piano in my living room
as we were doing it.
A